For centuries we’ve been fascinated with death, what happens to us when we experience it and what awaits us in the afterlife, if anything at all.
But one guy who died not just once, but twice for about two minutes at a time – once from a motorcycle accident and once from an overdose of painkillers – gave an AMA on Reddit and fielded questions on his experience of death. It’s a pretty fascinating insight.
The sensation of death apparently was a lot emptier than you’d think, with the lad describing it as a ‘dreamless nap’.
I had no idea, it was just black emptiness. No thoughts, no consciousness, nothing.Both times I was just “not there”. It was just all black. I would describe it as when you take a nap. A short nap with no dream, you wake up and it feels like you’ve been sleeping a long time, when in reality it’s only been about 15 minutes.If the doctors wouldn’t have said anything I would’ve just thought that I took a dreamless nap.
You usually think you’d experience just ‘black emptiness’, but apparently there’s a bit more to it then that.
It was definitely not just a gap. Much like a dreamless nap, you don’t just wake up and feel like time just jumped ahead. You know that you’ve been asleep for a while. At the same time, you can’t really remember experiencing anything at all, unless you had a dream. I experienced something, and that something was nothing.
When he realised he was dying, the only thing he could think was ‘oh fuck’- no surprise there really. Apparently there’s pain, then nothing, no life whatsoever. That sounds pretty terrifying if you ask me…
Now this guy has died twice, does he even fear death anymore? Nowhere near as much, of course. He said: “I definitely fear it less. I know now that death is nothing worse than sleeping. When you die, you just stop existing, nothing to worry about.”
Wow, that’s pretty depressing. But at least there’s an afterlife, right? Right!?
I have always had a part of me that hoped there was a God or Heaven or something greater than us. I mean, who wouldn’t want there to be a Heaven? But I am still an atheist, and now I know that there is no such thing as God or Heaven.
Any last cheery thoughts? “Death is death. Once your dead, that’s it, it’s over.” Cheers for clearing that up.
